Reblogging an old entry above. Lately I’ve been chewing on archaeology, and Scripture (especially postmodern textual analysis, where the culture, linguistic nuances, and origin of primary sources matter as much as the content itself). I’ve always noted the contrast between historical “facts” versus spiritually useful “concepts”. For example –from an even older biblical period — Anita Diamant’s choice in the excellent novel _The Red Tent_ (about Jacob and his wives and concubines) to turn Rachel and Leah’s “servants” into sisters. Maybe they were cousins, but according to Genesis, definitely not sisters… but as members of Jacob’s “clan”, and valued more than modern or more recent servants, I can see why Diamant did this. Modern readers necessarily see things like servants and holy objects in such a different light than ancient people… so I can at least tolerate (usually) the choice to “dress up” or “dumb down” what seems mundane or foreign to us, especially if there’s a larger point to be made. Conjecture and conflation is not necessarily anti-biblical, at least if it’s done carefully.

(Yes that title’s an homage to former Cub broadcasters Jack Brickhouse and Harry “Holy Cow” Carey, for those keeping score. Now on to our real subject: communion — boring though it may be compared to the “hot stove” league.)

This may have been obvious to millions of people over the years, but for some reason one simple piece of information about the Last Supper seems to have sort of escaped me till now:

The grail was not the mythical, golden $20,000 jewel-encrusted chalice we we’ve been told it was by well-intentioned artists and ministers. No, it was instead two cents worth of clay — thrown on a wheel and fired in a simple oven.

The contrast occurred to me at communion last sunday, when I had a choice between a golden (brass?) chalice and a simple brown pottery cup. (I went for pottery.)